Anthony Kiedis security guard scuffle

On June 21, 2013, prior to the Chili Peppers show that night in Delaware, Anthony Kiedis, along with his tour manager, Gage Freeman and a female friend were attempting to enter the Four Seasons hotel in Philadelphia to see the Rolling Stones before they left for their own concert, when a security guard mistook Kiedis for a fan and made an attempt to block him from entering. A scuffle broke out with the guard attempting to slam Kiedis to the ground with hotel security, Freeman and a bystander coming to his aid. After a brief discussion with the guard and hotel security, Kiedis and the guard shook hands, with Kiedis's only response on the situation being "I love the Rolling Stones". The Four Seasons and The Rolling Stones management said the guard did not work for them; however, they speculated he was a local guard hired to supplement their regular security team. Moments after the scuffle, the Rolling Stones exited the building to their awaiting limos.^[8]

Chad Smith's death threats

On November 8, 2013, while the band was in Brazil, the band's drummer, Chad Smith, made an appearance at a drum clinic where he was presented with a soccer jersey from a local Brazilian Flamengo team. Smith, who was appearing in the city of the team's hated rival, proceeded to jokingly place the jersey down his pants and threw it on the floor. Fans in attendance responded with boos and one person even threw an object at Smith, barely missing his head. Smith attempted to calm the crowd down, telling them he was kidding and the only place that it's OK to hate something or someone is in sports. Following his appearance, fans took to the internet, including YouTube, in outrage over Smith's joke, feeling it was completely disrespectful. Some fans issued more dangerous threats towards Smith by saying he would be killed or pelted with grenades or rocks on stage when the band performed in Brazil. Smith issued a statement through Twitter stating, "'I want to apologize for my inappropriate antics at the drum clinic, my joke about team rivalries went too far. Flamengo fans...I'm sorry" The post was accompanied by pictures of Smith wearing the Flamengo team jersey along with hanging out signing autographs for the team's supporters in attempts to further smooth over the situation. Smith even promised to wear the jersey for 24 hours and personally visit the team to apologize to the players. The band performed the following night without any problems.^[9]

Super Bowl XLVIII performance controversy

On January 10, 2014, it was announced that the band would be joining Bruno Mars as part of the Super Bowl XLVIII halftime show on February 2, 2014.^[10]

When asked about what the band would perform, Smith jokingly stated it would be Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused". Many in the media, however, did not understand the joke (Led Zeppelin's song is usually 12–30 minutes long when performed) and started reporting that they would perform the song with Mars. Smith had to clear up the confusion by saying "People in the media are so gullible sometimes. We will, however, be performing side one of Rush's 2112."^[11] Flea also made a joke about the Super Bowl performance through his Twitter page asking fans "Anybody wanna see my cock at the Super Bowl?" The Tweet was quickly removed but not before the media picked up on it, started reporting on his Tweet to which Flea was forced to respond by saying the Tweet was misleading and he has no plans of getting naked during the performance.^[12] The band is expected to join Mars on stage and appear for 3 minutes during his set. Smith said "There's no pressure on us. It's his gig. We're just gonna crash his gig for like three minutes, and then we pop up and things blow up."^[13]

On February 1, 2014, the band performed at a special pre-Super Bowl XLVIII concert in Brooklyn, New York. This was the band's first show in New York since May 2003 during their By the Way tour.

During the halftime show, the Chili Peppers joined Mars onstage for a three-minute performance of "Give It Away". Mars and the Chili Peppers generated 2.2 million tweets during the 12-minute performance, many from celebrities.^[14] Reviews of the performance were mixed for both artists. Some even commented on Kiedis' shirtless body and age, with some amazed with how good he looked, while some felt he was too old to go shirtless.^[15] A lot of complaints from the media, viewers and even fellow musicians were directed towards Flea and Klinghoffer who were accused of faking their performance because their instruments were not plugged in. Flea responded to the complaints through the band's website by saying "When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song "Give It Away" at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded. I understand the NFL's stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage, there a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the t.v. viewers. There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period. For the actual performance, Josh, Chad, and I were playing along with the pre recorded track (which was recorded earlier that week) so there was no need to plug in our guitars, so we did not. Could we have plugged them in and avoided bumming people out who have expressed disappointment that the instrument track was pre recorded? Of course, easily, we could have, and this would be a non-issue. We thought it better to not pretend. It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance. We decided that, with Anthony singing live, we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig."^[16][17] Chad Smith responded to the controversy through his Twitter page a few days later saying "FYI... Every band in the last 10 years at the Super Bowl has performed to a previously recorded track. It's the NFL 's policy. Period."^[18] Klinghoffer said in an April 2014 interview that out of the four members, Smith was most against performing this way. The band even received some complaints from fans who contacted the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Some wrote or called in about how they were actually offended by shirtless men and how both men and women should remained clothed because children were watching.^[19]

The halftime show set a record for the most watched halftime performance in Super Bowl history. The show pulled in 115.3 million viewers, better than Beyoncé did in 2013 with 110.8 million and shattering the previous halftime record Madonna set in 2012 with 114 million watching. The Super Bowl was also the most watched television show in U.S. history.^[20]

Box office score data

Originals

Cover songs

Additional musicians

• Mauro Refosco – percussion
• Chris Warren – keyboards

Guest musicians

• Bruno Mars + backing band – co-lead vocals, backing musicians (during the Super Bowl halftime show performance of "Give it Away")
• Will Ferrell – cowbell (on "Don't Fear the Reaper" during Tonight Show appearance)
• The Roots – backing musicians (on "Standing on the Verge of Getting it On" during the Tonight Show appearance)
• Jimmy Fallon – backing vocals (on "Standing on the Verge of Getting it On" during the Tonight Show appearance)